CRXSi90
09-21-2003, 06:09 PM
While doing my chem homework, I flipped through and ended on a chapter about Organic Chemistry. It talked about monomers, polymers, and amino functional groups. I believe this is the 2nd to last chapter, though...on the 2nd chapter now. ;)
Anyway, it sparked my interest and I started searching for old posts on autopia, then doing google searches.
I turned up this...
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:FJKKk9PpDH4J:www.bdt.com/home/details/chemistry.html+polymer+sealant+silicone+amino+func tional&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Hope you enjoy!
Kev
Oops, now you`ve done it. Your in for it now. This is the chemistry page. Those that want to know what they`re putting on their car and why it works, read on. Those that don`t can always return to Home Page.
We think that the more real facts you know, the better. We don`t light hoods on fire and we don`t pour acid on the paint. Detail products work on their real merits, not on smoke and mirrors. As reading material this will be sort od dry stuff. But if you are curious about what the label is telling you, this may be of some help separating the wheat from the chaff.
* Soaps and Detergents 101 What is a detergent?
* Why do Detergents help clean grease? or Applied Detergents 102
* What is a car wax and what does it do?
* What is it comprised of?
* What are it`s benefits?How long does it last?
* What are the different types of Waxes?
* What are polymers?
* What is silicone?
* What is an amine functional silicone?
* What is teflon?
* What is a resin?
* What is a sealant?
* What is pH and what does it mean?
SOAPS AND DETERGENTS - 101 Table of Contents
Chemically, soaps and detergents are fairly complex and diverse but the concept of how they work is very simple. In fact soaps are one of the the oldest forms of chemistry, having been used for centuries.
BASIC SOAP
Soaps clean dirt and oil by surrounding the dirt and oil particles with soap molecules and allowing them to be dissolved in water. Simple, eh? A soap molecule is made up of a long chain of atoms (between 10 and 40). One side of the molecule likes dirt and oil and the other side of the molecule likes water. When soap is mixed with dirt and oil then rinsed, the dirt liking side is attracted to the dirt and surrounds the particle. When you rinse away the soap, all the water liking tails stick out into the water and end up looking like millions of microscopic choosh balls.
WHY DETERGENTS?
Soap has a few problems, the biggest is that soap is badly affected by hard water. Chemists found that by using similarly shaped molecules, (long molecules with dirt liking and water liking ends) they could get better cleaning and less problems with hard water. These are called detergents. There were a few problems with early detergents also. Since they were designed to be such long lasting cleaners, natural processes could not break them down and they built up in the environment until they became a pollution problem. Now, most detergents still in use today are as biodegradable or more biodegradable than soaps.
How Soaps and Detergents work with cleaning grease Table of Contents
DEGREASERS
There has been a recent increase in interest in strong, low VOC degreasers. In general degreasing cleaners use three mechanisms for breaking down and removing grease and oil, 1) dissolving the grease with a solvent, 2) encapsulating the oils with detergents so that they can be washed away with water and 3) chemically changing the oils so that they can be washed away with water. Most degreasers use a combination of all three of these techniques.
GREASE AND OIL
Grease is merely a thickened version of oil. Strangely enough, the oils are usually thickened with specialized soaps, for instance lithium grease uses lithium based soaps, thus the name. Most of these soaps are not soluble in water so they don`t aid in the cleaning process so, for simplicity, we`ll consider grease and oils the same thing. Oils are medium length chains of carbon atoms, 12 to 20 carbon atoms long, that are insoluble in water. If an end of the oil is altered so that one end is water soluble you now have a detergent, or soap depending on how it has been altered.
CAUSTIC
Caustic Soda is one active ingredient in the soap making process. Fats and oils from plants or animals are mixed with a caustic to to turn them into soap. By mixing oils with caustic, an end of the molecule is altered so that it mixes with water, creating a soap molecule we talked about in the second paragraph. Almost any natural fat or oil will work in soap making. That is why you find soap made with olive oil, called castille soap or soaps made with cocoa butter which is oil from a coconut.
Caustic chemicals are chemicals with a high pH, over 11.5. They are very reactive chemicals and they will turn most oils into a soap. It follows that, if you can turn the oil your trying to clean into a soap, it will be a lot easier to clean. So, detergent manufacturers put in a little extra caustic in soap and detergents which help turn the oils to be cleaned into soap. This is a major reason why degreasers are so caustic. Since the user is going to be cleaning a lot of grease and oil, the formulator puts a lot of extra caustic into the cleaner to break down the grease and oil into soap.
DETERGENT
As mentioned earlier, detergents are molecules with one end that mixes with water and one end that mixes with oils. It sort of makes sense, that if you have a mixture of oil, water and detergent then the various parts will orient themselves to mix together and an emulsion forms. The average detergent emulsion is a blend of oils and water where all the oil droplets are surrounded by detergent molecules. The water mixing sides stick out into the water, like a pin cushion with lots of pins.
BUTYL
Butyl Cellosolve is a version of a group of solvents, called glycol ethers, that have the fairly unique ability to mix with both oils and water. Butyl Cellosolve can dissolve the oils to be cleaned and make it easier for the other ingredients to wash the oils away. So Butyl can easily be added to a water based cleaner, since it dissolves in water, and then start dissolving grease when it is needed. When the grease is pre dissolved by the butyl, the detergent and caustic can more easily grab the dirt and oils and wash them away.
What is a car wax and what does it do? Table of Contents
A car wax is best described by characterizing it`s properties and uses. This is somewhat of an industry term, in that, car waxes don`t always, but most times do, contain wax. Just like tin foil which does not contain tin and dish soap which does not contain soap, the technology has changed but the terminology has lagged behind. Car waxes are "finish products". They are used as the last step in the car polishing operation to bring out the depth and shine of the paint. Their purpose is to 1) smooth out the surface using very fine abrasives and 2) hide any remaining imperfections and 3) add durability to the finish usually with emulsified silicone fluids and waxes, either in combination or individually.
What is it comprised of? Table of Contents
Compounds, polishes, waxes and sealants are most commonly comprised of very tiny droplets (emulsion) of solvents, abrasives and active ingredients held in suspension in a water solution by emulsifiers. (Emulsifiers and emulsions can seem like mysterious concepts but actually are very common. Milk is an emulsion of milk fats and solids held in suspension by an emulsifier called casein.) A wax is different from the other products because it has less abrasive (powder) and the powder is very soft. Also the active ingredients are comprised of waxes, ordinary silicone fluids and/or polymers, in varying degrees and proportions. The combination of these light powders and active ingredients give the wax it`s depth, shine and moderate durability.
What are it`s benefits? Table of Contents
Car waxes bring out the best color and shine in the paint surface and provide temporary protection of the finished paint surface from the effects of the environment. Protection is provided by creating an ablative (wears away slowly) surface between the expensive paint and the harsh environment. There are three main ways that this protection is provided. 1) Environmental fallout or acid rain and it`s associated particles are extremely corrosive to the paint surface. Waxes and silicones are very repellent to these materials and are very resistant to acidic conditions. 2) Dirt and dust create an abrasive material on the paint surface that scratches the paint when touched. The damage caused by this stress is greatly reduced by improving the "mar and slip resistance" of the paint surface. 3) Oxygen in the atmosphere has an oxidizing effect on paint that is reduced by creating a barrier over the paint.
How long does it last? Table of Contents
My experience is that the best waxes that I`ve tested last no more that two months or between 6 to 8 hand washes with a car wash soap, as opposed to a dish soap which is much too harsh. As stated before, waxes and polishes are designed to create an ablative surface. That is, they are supposed to wear away before the paint does but be less expensive and easier to apply than more paint.
What are the different types of Waxes? Table of Contents
Waxes form a broad category of organic (contain carbon) materials that don`t fall into any one chemical family but are generally classed as lipids (for lack of a better place to put them). A materials is called a wax if it is 1) solid at room temperature, 2) melts at a fairly low point (called thermoplastic) and 3) does not fall into the category of polymer. The properties of waxes cover a large span of specifications but the "specs" that are important to automobile waxes are 1) hardness, 2) melting point 3) water repellency and 4) resistance to breakdown by environmental factors. There are many waxes available that fit the specs for a good automobile wax. They include vegetable waxes (carnauba), animal waxes (bees wax), Mineral petroleum waxes (paraffin and microcrystaline), Mineral Fossil waxes (montan) and (despite the apparent contradiction) synthetic waxes (short chain ethylenic polymers).
The chemical formulas for these waxes are quite complex and diverse and not as important as the properties of the various grades. There is no specific advantage of one wax over another (i.e.. microcrystaline wax is not intrinsically better than carnauba) because the waxes that are chosen for car waxes are all chosen for their properties that make them good for car waxes. A good wax for cars is fairly hard, melts at a reasonable temperature (not too far from the boiling point of water), has good water repellency and will be darn tenacious stuff when you spread it out on a car. In fact many wax types can be blended together to further modify the properties of the finished product, gloss depth, durability.
What are polymers? Table of Contents
The simplest definition for polymer is also the most descriptive: "poly" means many and "mer" means unit. So, any chemical that consists of endlessly repeating identical chemical units is a polymer. Polymers include such (now familiar yet somewhat incomprehensible) materials as polyethylene, polyurethane, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyisocyanate. Notice how the chemical name always starts with "poly" followed by another word. For example, poly-ethylene is many units of ethylene. Polymers also include more familiar materials such as wood, starch, rubber, protein and DNA. As can be seen from the latter list, polymers can have an endless variety of properties. In the car polish industry, the word polymer is the single most abused term I can think of. For example most of the thickeners used in car polishes and waxes are polymers which makes it suspiciously easy to put the words contains polymer on the bottle. Judge your product by how it works for you, not because the word polymer is on the label.
That being said, there are polymers that can make large improvements in the quality of automobile finish products. But they have to meet certain criteria to make them better than waxes or silicone fluids. The most important criteria is a chemical reaction called "cross linking". Which means that there has to be a way for each on of these long chain polymers to connect together. If a polymer cross links, it can form a durable net of polymer over the surface of the paint. Depending on other properties of the polymer and the cross link, a more durable coating can be formed than could other wise be achieved without the polymer.
What is silicone? Table of Contents
Silicone fluid is relatively short chain inorganic polymer called polydimethyl siloxane, please note the prefix poly before the units of dimethyl siloxane. The chain is not long enough to be typically called a polymer but by the technical definition, it is a polymer. Again we see here, the name "polymer" means less and less everytime you see it. The properties of silicone fluids range from very thin, volitile liquids that look and feel like petroleum solvents to thick heavy liquids that look like crystal clear honey. The only difference between the thin liquid and the honey liquid is the number of units in the dimethylsiloxane chain.
What is an aminofunctional silicone? Table of Contents
An aminofunctional silicone is a regular silicone fluid that has been modified slightly. Every so often, instead of a dimethyl siloxane unit, an aminofunctional siloxane unit has been substituted. The aminofuctional unit creates a spot in the chain where cross linking can occur. So an aminofunctional silicone can form the durable net that was mentioned earlier.
What is teflon? Table of Contents
Teflon is a trade name of Du Pont Chemicals for a polymer, mentioned earlier as polytetrafluoroethylene, aka PTFE. Teflon is an example of a polymer that is not well suited for use in a car wax because of several other properties unrelated to it`s durable slippery nature. Teflon is powder that melts at 600°F or disolves in fluorinated solvents such as freon. Those are the only known ways to make teflon into a liquid form. This is the main reason that teflon is poorly suited for car wax. If it can`t be made into a liquid, it can`t be made into a coating. If it won`t coat the surface, it won`t stay there. Teflon is a powder that gets wiped away with the other powders in a wax or polish.
What is a resin? Table of Contents
The chemical dictionary states that the term resin is "so broadly used as to be almost meaningless". Resin is a catch all term. But, usually, a resin is a polymer that melts or is soluble in specific solvents. In some cases the base material used to make a plastic is called a resin where the finished product containing plasticizers and fillers is called plastic. So, how do you know what resin is being refered to on a product label? You don`t. What does resin do for a polish or sealant? Since there are so many materials that can be classified as a resin, it is anybody`s guess. As with most of the complex sounding names on labels, they are marketing jargon. Use the product that provides the performance and characteristics that you like, not because there is long name on the label.
What is a sealant? Table of Contents
The term "sealant" seems to have different meanings for different groups. Detail people expect their sealant products to have extra durability, forming a protective film over the paint. Whereas, body shops and automobile painters call a product a sealant if 1) they can not repaint the area after using the product or 2) it will impair the solvent evaporation from a newly painted surface. Lastly, paint manufacturers call a product a sealant if the product will stop "bleed through" of undesirable properties from lower layers of paint or substrate to the newly painted surface, such as a primer.
This has created a lot of confusion over the past years. The consumer has to recognize the point of view of the person to whom they are talking to understand which type of sealant is being refered to. For a detailer, a sealant product should be one that forms some sort of cross linking film over the surface of the paint, forming a durable barrier on the surface. Such as a polymer like amino functional silicones. Just beware of the other terminology`s that easily confuse the discussion.
What is pH and what does it mean? Table of Contents
Simply put the pH scale is a set of numbers between 0 and 14 where "0" is the most acidic and "14" is the most caustic with "7" in the middle, being neutral. Conceptually, since most people in our industry are interested in the acid side of the system, the smaller the number, the more acidic the system. So far...so good. Unfortunately the scale is logarithmic, for every integer that the scale decreases the material is 10 times more acidic. Those of us in earthquake country know all too well the consequences of a change of from 6 to 7 on the logarithmic, Richter scale. The difference in the pH scale is just as dramatic and therefore just as misleading.
A few examples of maximum acid strength might be helpful:
Sea water has pH of 7.75 to 8.25
Tap water has a pH of between 5.5 and 6.5.
Organic acids
Citric acid, found in citrus fruits has a pH of 2.0
Oxalic acid, found in spinach has a pH of 1.8
"Weak" mineral acids
Phosphoric acid has pH of 2.2
Hydrofluoric acid has a pH of 3.14
"Strong" mineral acids
Sulfuric acid, battery acid, has a pH of .32 @ 1N (indicates concentration)
Hydrochloric acid, aka Muriatic acid has a pH of .1 @ 1N.
A couple of things to note from this list are 1) how very strong "strong acids" are 2) how relatively weak yet dangerous hydrofluoric acid is and 3) and how small and misleading the difference is between organic acids and "weak" mineral acids. As an example, hydrofluoric acid (HF), one of the most highly regulated, most dangerous acids and the only acid that will dissolve glass is a "weak acid". Also, these numbers are maximums, the pH increases when the solution is diluted or changes when there are other substances are dissolved in the solution.
Just to complicate things a bit more, mixing some strong mineral acids together with other relatively weak acids can create a solution of "super acid". This can result in acid strengths of up to 12 times higher than either acid by itself and are not measured accurately by the normal pH scale. In theory, this is the result obtained by adding HF to other mineral acids in wheel cleaners. Or mixing several weak acids together can have a synergistic effect where together these acids do more than just strong solutions of each one separately.
In practical applications, a formulator can get identical pH values by using various quantities of different acids. For example very small amounts of very strong acids or larger amounts of weaker acids can result in the same pH. But since pH is not a very good indicator of the strength of the acid in every system, this approach won`t alway produce the desired results. Each acid has properties that make it most useful for certain jobs. For example Citric acid is quite good at picking up Calcium ions in solution so acts as a good water softener where the same pH of a Sulfuric acid solution would be worthless for that application. My point here is that, it is not possible to judge how well a product will do the job it is designed for just by measuring the pH and stronger is not always better.
So, acid strength is always relative to the system your measuring and what materials are in danger of being dissolved or attacked by the acid. pH is a measure of the relative strength of an acid but the key word is "relative".
Anyway, it sparked my interest and I started searching for old posts on autopia, then doing google searches.
I turned up this...
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:FJKKk9PpDH4J:www.bdt.com/home/details/chemistry.html+polymer+sealant+silicone+amino+func tional&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Hope you enjoy!
Kev
Oops, now you`ve done it. Your in for it now. This is the chemistry page. Those that want to know what they`re putting on their car and why it works, read on. Those that don`t can always return to Home Page.
We think that the more real facts you know, the better. We don`t light hoods on fire and we don`t pour acid on the paint. Detail products work on their real merits, not on smoke and mirrors. As reading material this will be sort od dry stuff. But if you are curious about what the label is telling you, this may be of some help separating the wheat from the chaff.
* Soaps and Detergents 101 What is a detergent?
* Why do Detergents help clean grease? or Applied Detergents 102
* What is a car wax and what does it do?
* What is it comprised of?
* What are it`s benefits?How long does it last?
* What are the different types of Waxes?
* What are polymers?
* What is silicone?
* What is an amine functional silicone?
* What is teflon?
* What is a resin?
* What is a sealant?
* What is pH and what does it mean?
SOAPS AND DETERGENTS - 101 Table of Contents
Chemically, soaps and detergents are fairly complex and diverse but the concept of how they work is very simple. In fact soaps are one of the the oldest forms of chemistry, having been used for centuries.
BASIC SOAP
Soaps clean dirt and oil by surrounding the dirt and oil particles with soap molecules and allowing them to be dissolved in water. Simple, eh? A soap molecule is made up of a long chain of atoms (between 10 and 40). One side of the molecule likes dirt and oil and the other side of the molecule likes water. When soap is mixed with dirt and oil then rinsed, the dirt liking side is attracted to the dirt and surrounds the particle. When you rinse away the soap, all the water liking tails stick out into the water and end up looking like millions of microscopic choosh balls.
WHY DETERGENTS?
Soap has a few problems, the biggest is that soap is badly affected by hard water. Chemists found that by using similarly shaped molecules, (long molecules with dirt liking and water liking ends) they could get better cleaning and less problems with hard water. These are called detergents. There were a few problems with early detergents also. Since they were designed to be such long lasting cleaners, natural processes could not break them down and they built up in the environment until they became a pollution problem. Now, most detergents still in use today are as biodegradable or more biodegradable than soaps.
How Soaps and Detergents work with cleaning grease Table of Contents
DEGREASERS
There has been a recent increase in interest in strong, low VOC degreasers. In general degreasing cleaners use three mechanisms for breaking down and removing grease and oil, 1) dissolving the grease with a solvent, 2) encapsulating the oils with detergents so that they can be washed away with water and 3) chemically changing the oils so that they can be washed away with water. Most degreasers use a combination of all three of these techniques.
GREASE AND OIL
Grease is merely a thickened version of oil. Strangely enough, the oils are usually thickened with specialized soaps, for instance lithium grease uses lithium based soaps, thus the name. Most of these soaps are not soluble in water so they don`t aid in the cleaning process so, for simplicity, we`ll consider grease and oils the same thing. Oils are medium length chains of carbon atoms, 12 to 20 carbon atoms long, that are insoluble in water. If an end of the oil is altered so that one end is water soluble you now have a detergent, or soap depending on how it has been altered.
CAUSTIC
Caustic Soda is one active ingredient in the soap making process. Fats and oils from plants or animals are mixed with a caustic to to turn them into soap. By mixing oils with caustic, an end of the molecule is altered so that it mixes with water, creating a soap molecule we talked about in the second paragraph. Almost any natural fat or oil will work in soap making. That is why you find soap made with olive oil, called castille soap or soaps made with cocoa butter which is oil from a coconut.
Caustic chemicals are chemicals with a high pH, over 11.5. They are very reactive chemicals and they will turn most oils into a soap. It follows that, if you can turn the oil your trying to clean into a soap, it will be a lot easier to clean. So, detergent manufacturers put in a little extra caustic in soap and detergents which help turn the oils to be cleaned into soap. This is a major reason why degreasers are so caustic. Since the user is going to be cleaning a lot of grease and oil, the formulator puts a lot of extra caustic into the cleaner to break down the grease and oil into soap.
DETERGENT
As mentioned earlier, detergents are molecules with one end that mixes with water and one end that mixes with oils. It sort of makes sense, that if you have a mixture of oil, water and detergent then the various parts will orient themselves to mix together and an emulsion forms. The average detergent emulsion is a blend of oils and water where all the oil droplets are surrounded by detergent molecules. The water mixing sides stick out into the water, like a pin cushion with lots of pins.
BUTYL
Butyl Cellosolve is a version of a group of solvents, called glycol ethers, that have the fairly unique ability to mix with both oils and water. Butyl Cellosolve can dissolve the oils to be cleaned and make it easier for the other ingredients to wash the oils away. So Butyl can easily be added to a water based cleaner, since it dissolves in water, and then start dissolving grease when it is needed. When the grease is pre dissolved by the butyl, the detergent and caustic can more easily grab the dirt and oils and wash them away.
What is a car wax and what does it do? Table of Contents
A car wax is best described by characterizing it`s properties and uses. This is somewhat of an industry term, in that, car waxes don`t always, but most times do, contain wax. Just like tin foil which does not contain tin and dish soap which does not contain soap, the technology has changed but the terminology has lagged behind. Car waxes are "finish products". They are used as the last step in the car polishing operation to bring out the depth and shine of the paint. Their purpose is to 1) smooth out the surface using very fine abrasives and 2) hide any remaining imperfections and 3) add durability to the finish usually with emulsified silicone fluids and waxes, either in combination or individually.
What is it comprised of? Table of Contents
Compounds, polishes, waxes and sealants are most commonly comprised of very tiny droplets (emulsion) of solvents, abrasives and active ingredients held in suspension in a water solution by emulsifiers. (Emulsifiers and emulsions can seem like mysterious concepts but actually are very common. Milk is an emulsion of milk fats and solids held in suspension by an emulsifier called casein.) A wax is different from the other products because it has less abrasive (powder) and the powder is very soft. Also the active ingredients are comprised of waxes, ordinary silicone fluids and/or polymers, in varying degrees and proportions. The combination of these light powders and active ingredients give the wax it`s depth, shine and moderate durability.
What are it`s benefits? Table of Contents
Car waxes bring out the best color and shine in the paint surface and provide temporary protection of the finished paint surface from the effects of the environment. Protection is provided by creating an ablative (wears away slowly) surface between the expensive paint and the harsh environment. There are three main ways that this protection is provided. 1) Environmental fallout or acid rain and it`s associated particles are extremely corrosive to the paint surface. Waxes and silicones are very repellent to these materials and are very resistant to acidic conditions. 2) Dirt and dust create an abrasive material on the paint surface that scratches the paint when touched. The damage caused by this stress is greatly reduced by improving the "mar and slip resistance" of the paint surface. 3) Oxygen in the atmosphere has an oxidizing effect on paint that is reduced by creating a barrier over the paint.
How long does it last? Table of Contents
My experience is that the best waxes that I`ve tested last no more that two months or between 6 to 8 hand washes with a car wash soap, as opposed to a dish soap which is much too harsh. As stated before, waxes and polishes are designed to create an ablative surface. That is, they are supposed to wear away before the paint does but be less expensive and easier to apply than more paint.
What are the different types of Waxes? Table of Contents
Waxes form a broad category of organic (contain carbon) materials that don`t fall into any one chemical family but are generally classed as lipids (for lack of a better place to put them). A materials is called a wax if it is 1) solid at room temperature, 2) melts at a fairly low point (called thermoplastic) and 3) does not fall into the category of polymer. The properties of waxes cover a large span of specifications but the "specs" that are important to automobile waxes are 1) hardness, 2) melting point 3) water repellency and 4) resistance to breakdown by environmental factors. There are many waxes available that fit the specs for a good automobile wax. They include vegetable waxes (carnauba), animal waxes (bees wax), Mineral petroleum waxes (paraffin and microcrystaline), Mineral Fossil waxes (montan) and (despite the apparent contradiction) synthetic waxes (short chain ethylenic polymers).
The chemical formulas for these waxes are quite complex and diverse and not as important as the properties of the various grades. There is no specific advantage of one wax over another (i.e.. microcrystaline wax is not intrinsically better than carnauba) because the waxes that are chosen for car waxes are all chosen for their properties that make them good for car waxes. A good wax for cars is fairly hard, melts at a reasonable temperature (not too far from the boiling point of water), has good water repellency and will be darn tenacious stuff when you spread it out on a car. In fact many wax types can be blended together to further modify the properties of the finished product, gloss depth, durability.
What are polymers? Table of Contents
The simplest definition for polymer is also the most descriptive: "poly" means many and "mer" means unit. So, any chemical that consists of endlessly repeating identical chemical units is a polymer. Polymers include such (now familiar yet somewhat incomprehensible) materials as polyethylene, polyurethane, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyisocyanate. Notice how the chemical name always starts with "poly" followed by another word. For example, poly-ethylene is many units of ethylene. Polymers also include more familiar materials such as wood, starch, rubber, protein and DNA. As can be seen from the latter list, polymers can have an endless variety of properties. In the car polish industry, the word polymer is the single most abused term I can think of. For example most of the thickeners used in car polishes and waxes are polymers which makes it suspiciously easy to put the words contains polymer on the bottle. Judge your product by how it works for you, not because the word polymer is on the label.
That being said, there are polymers that can make large improvements in the quality of automobile finish products. But they have to meet certain criteria to make them better than waxes or silicone fluids. The most important criteria is a chemical reaction called "cross linking". Which means that there has to be a way for each on of these long chain polymers to connect together. If a polymer cross links, it can form a durable net of polymer over the surface of the paint. Depending on other properties of the polymer and the cross link, a more durable coating can be formed than could other wise be achieved without the polymer.
What is silicone? Table of Contents
Silicone fluid is relatively short chain inorganic polymer called polydimethyl siloxane, please note the prefix poly before the units of dimethyl siloxane. The chain is not long enough to be typically called a polymer but by the technical definition, it is a polymer. Again we see here, the name "polymer" means less and less everytime you see it. The properties of silicone fluids range from very thin, volitile liquids that look and feel like petroleum solvents to thick heavy liquids that look like crystal clear honey. The only difference between the thin liquid and the honey liquid is the number of units in the dimethylsiloxane chain.
What is an aminofunctional silicone? Table of Contents
An aminofunctional silicone is a regular silicone fluid that has been modified slightly. Every so often, instead of a dimethyl siloxane unit, an aminofunctional siloxane unit has been substituted. The aminofuctional unit creates a spot in the chain where cross linking can occur. So an aminofunctional silicone can form the durable net that was mentioned earlier.
What is teflon? Table of Contents
Teflon is a trade name of Du Pont Chemicals for a polymer, mentioned earlier as polytetrafluoroethylene, aka PTFE. Teflon is an example of a polymer that is not well suited for use in a car wax because of several other properties unrelated to it`s durable slippery nature. Teflon is powder that melts at 600°F or disolves in fluorinated solvents such as freon. Those are the only known ways to make teflon into a liquid form. This is the main reason that teflon is poorly suited for car wax. If it can`t be made into a liquid, it can`t be made into a coating. If it won`t coat the surface, it won`t stay there. Teflon is a powder that gets wiped away with the other powders in a wax or polish.
What is a resin? Table of Contents
The chemical dictionary states that the term resin is "so broadly used as to be almost meaningless". Resin is a catch all term. But, usually, a resin is a polymer that melts or is soluble in specific solvents. In some cases the base material used to make a plastic is called a resin where the finished product containing plasticizers and fillers is called plastic. So, how do you know what resin is being refered to on a product label? You don`t. What does resin do for a polish or sealant? Since there are so many materials that can be classified as a resin, it is anybody`s guess. As with most of the complex sounding names on labels, they are marketing jargon. Use the product that provides the performance and characteristics that you like, not because there is long name on the label.
What is a sealant? Table of Contents
The term "sealant" seems to have different meanings for different groups. Detail people expect their sealant products to have extra durability, forming a protective film over the paint. Whereas, body shops and automobile painters call a product a sealant if 1) they can not repaint the area after using the product or 2) it will impair the solvent evaporation from a newly painted surface. Lastly, paint manufacturers call a product a sealant if the product will stop "bleed through" of undesirable properties from lower layers of paint or substrate to the newly painted surface, such as a primer.
This has created a lot of confusion over the past years. The consumer has to recognize the point of view of the person to whom they are talking to understand which type of sealant is being refered to. For a detailer, a sealant product should be one that forms some sort of cross linking film over the surface of the paint, forming a durable barrier on the surface. Such as a polymer like amino functional silicones. Just beware of the other terminology`s that easily confuse the discussion.
What is pH and what does it mean? Table of Contents
Simply put the pH scale is a set of numbers between 0 and 14 where "0" is the most acidic and "14" is the most caustic with "7" in the middle, being neutral. Conceptually, since most people in our industry are interested in the acid side of the system, the smaller the number, the more acidic the system. So far...so good. Unfortunately the scale is logarithmic, for every integer that the scale decreases the material is 10 times more acidic. Those of us in earthquake country know all too well the consequences of a change of from 6 to 7 on the logarithmic, Richter scale. The difference in the pH scale is just as dramatic and therefore just as misleading.
A few examples of maximum acid strength might be helpful:
Sea water has pH of 7.75 to 8.25
Tap water has a pH of between 5.5 and 6.5.
Organic acids
Citric acid, found in citrus fruits has a pH of 2.0
Oxalic acid, found in spinach has a pH of 1.8
"Weak" mineral acids
Phosphoric acid has pH of 2.2
Hydrofluoric acid has a pH of 3.14
"Strong" mineral acids
Sulfuric acid, battery acid, has a pH of .32 @ 1N (indicates concentration)
Hydrochloric acid, aka Muriatic acid has a pH of .1 @ 1N.
A couple of things to note from this list are 1) how very strong "strong acids" are 2) how relatively weak yet dangerous hydrofluoric acid is and 3) and how small and misleading the difference is between organic acids and "weak" mineral acids. As an example, hydrofluoric acid (HF), one of the most highly regulated, most dangerous acids and the only acid that will dissolve glass is a "weak acid". Also, these numbers are maximums, the pH increases when the solution is diluted or changes when there are other substances are dissolved in the solution.
Just to complicate things a bit more, mixing some strong mineral acids together with other relatively weak acids can create a solution of "super acid". This can result in acid strengths of up to 12 times higher than either acid by itself and are not measured accurately by the normal pH scale. In theory, this is the result obtained by adding HF to other mineral acids in wheel cleaners. Or mixing several weak acids together can have a synergistic effect where together these acids do more than just strong solutions of each one separately.
In practical applications, a formulator can get identical pH values by using various quantities of different acids. For example very small amounts of very strong acids or larger amounts of weaker acids can result in the same pH. But since pH is not a very good indicator of the strength of the acid in every system, this approach won`t alway produce the desired results. Each acid has properties that make it most useful for certain jobs. For example Citric acid is quite good at picking up Calcium ions in solution so acts as a good water softener where the same pH of a Sulfuric acid solution would be worthless for that application. My point here is that, it is not possible to judge how well a product will do the job it is designed for just by measuring the pH and stronger is not always better.
So, acid strength is always relative to the system your measuring and what materials are in danger of being dissolved or attacked by the acid. pH is a measure of the relative strength of an acid but the key word is "relative".